Technology | Nostalgia | Home Computers | 1980s

Remembering the Sinclair ZX Spectrum: A Milestone 8-Bit Computer Turns 40

Personal memories of my first home computer and reflections on its impact

Is it really the 40th anniversary of Sinclair ZX Spectrum? How quickly those years have gone by!

I couldn’t let the day pass without writing something. So I put this article together at the last minute using material I first wrote a few years ago for a now-defunct blog.

A tatty 48K ZX Spectrum I bought around 1988, a few years after selling my original 16K machine. Photo by the author

First Computer At Home

The Sinclair ZX Spectrum is a particularly significant 8-bit computer for me because it was the first computer I ever owned.

Improving on the ZX81

Like the ZX81 before it, the ZX Spectrum was heavily advertised in the various electronics magazines I read back in the 80s.

Released in 1982, the Spectrum improved on the ZX81 in several ways, such as adding colour and sound, as well as more memory (16 / 48 KB, instead of 1 KB), and an improved keyboard.

It also had a bigger ROM — at 16 KB it was twice as big as the one in the ZX81.